Departing Kansas Rep. Fred Patton takes stock

Outgoing state Rep. Fred Patton spent years serving at the Statehouse and on a school board. Years juggling complex issues of deep public interest left him a changed person. Not the kind of overwhelming personal transformation associated with huge egos and bright lights of the nation's political epicenter in Washington, D.C. No, Patton's realm was the Seaman school district north of Topeka and the domed Capitol in downtown Topeka.